Monday, April 25, 2005
legs to dance
A week ago, on the release of three big tamil films (Chandramukhi- Rajnikant, Mumbai Express- Kamal Hassan, Sachien- Vijay) I wrote this:
A towering cutout of Rajnikant in a salute-pose stands dripping wet with milk, as spring-footed people at the theatre jump about its legs catching the milk-splashes and patting it on their heads. With their eyes closed, like in a temple. There's absolute piety here too, but just much more vocal, much more physical, so much more ecstatic.
So many of them are just standing around and whistling. At nothing in particular, but just as if every time someone mentions the word "Superstar" or even thinks it, two fingers are reflexively shoved into the mouth and the most piercing, most devoted whistle shrills out above bursting crackers.
They're dancing in total lost frenzy. Packed off into the theatre hall by the fan club leader, they keep their feet moving, hips thrusting, their throats hoarsely yelling, chanting, singing. And inside... Even advertisements are getting cheered at, because each passing ad means they're getting closer and closer to when Chandramukhi will be on. Then. Slooooowwly, stretched across a whole 3 minutes, the words 'SuperStar Rajnikant' appear on the screen, and then a shining star with his face on it swirls for a baiting while. In those 3 minutes, every single person in the hall is standing up, and yelling things I don't think even he is conscious of. Those 3 minutes, everyone knows, are purely for the fans.
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After writing that bit, I decided I had to tell SOMEone about what a super time I'd had getting myself into four first-day-first-shows (three of Rajni, one of Kamal) on April 14. But I was greeted with "Such rowdies they must've been"… "Such idiots, idolising a fellow who can't even act"… "They're dangerous people… hope you're ok - didn't you get felt up?"…
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Everyone was telling me how they knew about fans who tore the screen when Rajni was abused by the villain in the movie, how they broke theatre chairs, slashed the seats with blades, mauled women.
"It's mostly the slum people who act like this, basically because they don't have anything else to do, and they're not educated no? Poor things," said someone, known to frequent the wildest of raves where non-slum people let themselves go. None of them had actually seen any of this happen. They'd heard. They knew.
I sat shocked, staring at my terminal. If people were ready to throw hearsay around like they'd breathed in the sweat and been deafened by the shouts and cheers, maybe they'd be ready to see another point of view, I thought. The piece was speed-written as a straight forward major-happenings-in-the-city story, and filed in time for the next day's issue.
The next day, photos of the fans (to go with the story) were declared "cheap" and Malaika Arora's legs went on page one. I like legs. They kick well.
A towering cutout of Rajnikant in a salute-pose stands dripping wet with milk, as spring-footed people at the theatre jump about its legs catching the milk-splashes and patting it on their heads. With their eyes closed, like in a temple. There's absolute piety here too, but just much more vocal, much more physical, so much more ecstatic.
So many of them are just standing around and whistling. At nothing in particular, but just as if every time someone mentions the word "Superstar" or even thinks it, two fingers are reflexively shoved into the mouth and the most piercing, most devoted whistle shrills out above bursting crackers.
They're dancing in total lost frenzy. Packed off into the theatre hall by the fan club leader, they keep their feet moving, hips thrusting, their throats hoarsely yelling, chanting, singing. And inside... Even advertisements are getting cheered at, because each passing ad means they're getting closer and closer to when Chandramukhi will be on. Then. Slooooowwly, stretched across a whole 3 minutes, the words 'SuperStar Rajnikant' appear on the screen, and then a shining star with his face on it swirls for a baiting while. In those 3 minutes, every single person in the hall is standing up, and yelling things I don't think even he is conscious of. Those 3 minutes, everyone knows, are purely for the fans.
--------
After writing that bit, I decided I had to tell SOMEone about what a super time I'd had getting myself into four first-day-first-shows (three of Rajni, one of Kamal) on April 14. But I was greeted with "Such rowdies they must've been"… "Such idiots, idolising a fellow who can't even act"… "They're dangerous people… hope you're ok - didn't you get felt up?"…
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Everyone was telling me how they knew about fans who tore the screen when Rajni was abused by the villain in the movie, how they broke theatre chairs, slashed the seats with blades, mauled women.
"It's mostly the slum people who act like this, basically because they don't have anything else to do, and they're not educated no? Poor things," said someone, known to frequent the wildest of raves where non-slum people let themselves go. None of them had actually seen any of this happen. They'd heard. They knew.
I sat shocked, staring at my terminal. If people were ready to throw hearsay around like they'd breathed in the sweat and been deafened by the shouts and cheers, maybe they'd be ready to see another point of view, I thought. The piece was speed-written as a straight forward major-happenings-in-the-city story, and filed in time for the next day's issue.
The next day, photos of the fans (to go with the story) were declared "cheap" and Malaika Arora's legs went on page one. I like legs. They kick well.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
road to eldorado
Every time someone tries to tell me Madras is changing into "a hep and cool city", I bite my teeth tight, scrunch my hands into fists and pray for the proliferation of "uncool" people in the city.
But after one random wandering into Mylapore, I’ve got a certain jasmineoilbath-turmeric-Cuticura-vibhooti smell bottled up in my head. And each time someone swears that the city’s becoming a salon-manicured, pink-clothed, cappuccino-preferring person, I smell my Mylapore smell.
I had strolled into the place, staring up open-mouthed at the gopuram of the Kabaleeswaran temple. The temple is all I knew of the place, apart from some "in my bachelor days" wonderfully embellished stories from dad – about the Brahmin agraharams (streets set apart for Brahmins), the banishing of fish/mutton shops in the area, some political speeches, and my dad’s best reel off: the shocking saga of a maami (aunty) who used Milkmaid condensed milk for payasam ("What?! She didn’t stand over the stove mixing the milk for 24 hours till it got thicker?").
But I must’ve chosen a particularly busy day to walk in there because I realised, still open-mouthed, that there wasn’t an inch of road to spare for another tyre, or foot.
Right in the middle of all the Swiss ice-cream shops, cell phone showrooms, gigantic shopping malls, and BMWs trying desperately to park in auto stands, were three towering chariots swathed in flower garlands. As the ther (chariot) jerked forward, pulled by tight-muscled perspiring young men, the milling just-bathed crowd parted reverently to give way. Just as I was craning my neck to see what was glistening in the ther, I realised that apart from two policemen standing in a corner wolfing down free slices of pineapple from a vendor, no police was around to handle the masses.
Apparently, during the Panguni festival that happens every year in the Kabaleeswaran temple, it's like the temple priests fleetingly reclaim their lost authority. Every morning and evening, for 10 days in March, the temple idol of Shiva is brought out, mounted on different vahanas. And for those 10 days, one wave of the priest’s hand voicelessly directs hundreds of people. The minute he wiggles that little bell and the chariot lunges forward, folded hands and soft prayers go up in the air. Some children get to ride on the ther, prettied up in new shiny clothes, and appropriately ohh-aahing when gold-plated puppets come flying from all sides and shower flowers on the idol.
During these 10 days, people from villages around Chennai throng to Mylapore with plastic toys, beaded necklaces, clay pots, plastic flowers, matchboxes, kumkum, turmeric, merry-go-rounds, mini giant-wheels, blouse-pieces, idols of gods and goddesses…
And in the middle of it, I couldn’t help cheering along, especially when the little girl who wanted to see it all shifted herself coolly from her stunned dad’s shoulder onto my head. Each time the closely watched puppet angel swung towards the ther, the entire crowd watched, saying "Ippo vizhum. Ippo Vizhum" (Now it’ll fall), as if they'd be proven fools if they didn't guess right. And the fresh-faced boy hiding behind the electric pole, holding the puppet strings, would smile to himself, and tug the string just when everyone least expected it. The blood red flowers dropped on the idol, among mad clapping and cheering and hurried praying.
10 days of a locality turning into a complete chandhai (exhibition-cum-market). A day of impulse buys ("All for god only. Shiva, shiva"). My pick of the day: a big-headed plastic monkey in red painted T-shirt, riding a red cycle-rickshaw, at the back of which a proud sticker said "Hardworking rickshawman". It even has a key to wind the guy up so he can take imaginary people for 5 second rides.
Ok, so there were guys in Adidas shorts filming the whole thing in videocams. It isn't about saying shut-up to new things. It's about poohing to the self-congratulatory cool world that poohs to the sometimes similarly self-congratulatory old-world. But oh well, there ain’t nothing cooler than kudumi vaadhyaars (priests with pony-tails… oh yuck to English translations) on Bullets.
---------
Note to self: Find photoshop for size-cutting and posting more photos taken.
But after one random wandering into Mylapore, I’ve got a certain jasmineoilbath-turmeric-Cuticura-vibhooti smell bottled up in my head. And each time someone swears that the city’s becoming a salon-manicured, pink-clothed, cappuccino-preferring person, I smell my Mylapore smell.
I had strolled into the place, staring up open-mouthed at the gopuram of the Kabaleeswaran temple. The temple is all I knew of the place, apart from some "in my bachelor days" wonderfully embellished stories from dad – about the Brahmin agraharams (streets set apart for Brahmins), the banishing of fish/mutton shops in the area, some political speeches, and my dad’s best reel off: the shocking saga of a maami (aunty) who used Milkmaid condensed milk for payasam ("What?! She didn’t stand over the stove mixing the milk for 24 hours till it got thicker?").
But I must’ve chosen a particularly busy day to walk in there because I realised, still open-mouthed, that there wasn’t an inch of road to spare for another tyre, or foot.
Right in the middle of all the Swiss ice-cream shops, cell phone showrooms, gigantic shopping malls, and BMWs trying desperately to park in auto stands, were three towering chariots swathed in flower garlands. As the ther (chariot) jerked forward, pulled by tight-muscled perspiring young men, the milling just-bathed crowd parted reverently to give way. Just as I was craning my neck to see what was glistening in the ther, I realised that apart from two policemen standing in a corner wolfing down free slices of pineapple from a vendor, no police was around to handle the masses.
Apparently, during the Panguni festival that happens every year in the Kabaleeswaran temple, it's like the temple priests fleetingly reclaim their lost authority. Every morning and evening, for 10 days in March, the temple idol of Shiva is brought out, mounted on different vahanas. And for those 10 days, one wave of the priest’s hand voicelessly directs hundreds of people. The minute he wiggles that little bell and the chariot lunges forward, folded hands and soft prayers go up in the air. Some children get to ride on the ther, prettied up in new shiny clothes, and appropriately ohh-aahing when gold-plated puppets come flying from all sides and shower flowers on the idol.
During these 10 days, people from villages around Chennai throng to Mylapore with plastic toys, beaded necklaces, clay pots, plastic flowers, matchboxes, kumkum, turmeric, merry-go-rounds, mini giant-wheels, blouse-pieces, idols of gods and goddesses…
And in the middle of it, I couldn’t help cheering along, especially when the little girl who wanted to see it all shifted herself coolly from her stunned dad’s shoulder onto my head. Each time the closely watched puppet angel swung towards the ther, the entire crowd watched, saying "Ippo vizhum. Ippo Vizhum" (Now it’ll fall), as if they'd be proven fools if they didn't guess right. And the fresh-faced boy hiding behind the electric pole, holding the puppet strings, would smile to himself, and tug the string just when everyone least expected it. The blood red flowers dropped on the idol, among mad clapping and cheering and hurried praying.
10 days of a locality turning into a complete chandhai (exhibition-cum-market). A day of impulse buys ("All for god only. Shiva, shiva"). My pick of the day: a big-headed plastic monkey in red painted T-shirt, riding a red cycle-rickshaw, at the back of which a proud sticker said "Hardworking rickshawman". It even has a key to wind the guy up so he can take imaginary people for 5 second rides.
Ok, so there were guys in Adidas shorts filming the whole thing in videocams. It isn't about saying shut-up to new things. It's about poohing to the self-congratulatory cool world that poohs to the sometimes similarly self-congratulatory old-world. But oh well, there ain’t nothing cooler than kudumi vaadhyaars (priests with pony-tails… oh yuck to English translations) on Bullets.
---------
Note to self: Find photoshop for size-cutting and posting more photos taken.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
home, places we've grown
Oh, all that I know
There's nothing here to run from,
'Cos yeah, everybody here's got somebody to lean on
- Don't Panic (Cold Play)
There's nothing here to run from,
'Cos yeah, everybody here's got somebody to lean on
- Don't Panic (Cold Play)
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
drippy days
A week ago, I looked with disgust at a dusty drum and orange plastic pot sitting in the corner of our miniscule kitchen. "I need to keep the potato basket here. Can't we chuck these useless things out?" I asked my flatmate. When I touched it, she slapped my hand away, looking like she'd like to pull my nails out of my fingers one, by one.
"Summer's coming. When you have soap in your eyes and the tap makes that khiiisssshhh sound, you'll know why this dirty drum is important," she said. I thought it quite unneccessary that she walked off without finishing the coffee she was making for me. What drama.
Today, the tap said "Khiiiiisshhh" when I had soap in my eyes. And the potato basket is a big waste.
Fortunately for me, there's a tap on the ground floor with running saline water. I'll only have to climb up two floors with the orange pot, boil the whole thing on our little Clix gas stove, drain the salt with the littler coffee filter, and wait for it to cool before I use it. All this on the day I stop jogging because it's too stressful.
I find it utterly non-funny that today is World Water Day.
"Summer's coming. When you have soap in your eyes and the tap makes that khiiisssshhh sound, you'll know why this dirty drum is important," she said. I thought it quite unneccessary that she walked off without finishing the coffee she was making for me. What drama.
Today, the tap said "Khiiiiisshhh" when I had soap in my eyes. And the potato basket is a big waste.
Fortunately for me, there's a tap on the ground floor with running saline water. I'll only have to climb up two floors with the orange pot, boil the whole thing on our little Clix gas stove, drain the salt with the littler coffee filter, and wait for it to cool before I use it. All this on the day I stop jogging because it's too stressful.
I find it utterly non-funny that today is World Water Day.
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